Path of Shadows lb-8

by Lauren Haney

  Bak took a careful sip. He tasted an unfamiliar bitterness and jerked away. The man grabbed a handful of hair; yanked his head back, jolting his pounding head; and pressed the jar to his lips. Bak doubted the liquid was poison. If these men had wished to slay him, they would have silenced him with a dag ger, not kept him quiet by brute force.

  Unless they were beginning to feel the pressure of pursuit and no longer wanted to be burdened with him.

  He let the liquid trickle down his chin. The man barked out an order. Another man came, held Bak’s nose, and pried his mouth open. Bak choked on the liquid the leader poured in side-and swallowed much of it.

  By the time the men were ready to move out, he was so groggy he needed help to sit up. The men untied his hands and dragged him to the mule. His eyelids drooped and he knew no more.

  Bak came half-awake. He was straddling the back of the mule, his feet tied together beneath its belly, his arms secured around its neck. The creature’s gait was rough, its breathing labored. Each step it took made Bak’s head pound, but time-or maybe the sleeping potion-had eased the pain, which was neither as sharp nor as intense as before.

  The leader trotted a few paces ahead, while one man led the mule and two others hurried along behind. They, like their charge, were breathing heavily. The sun, which held the warmth of early morning but not the heat of midday, beat down on Bak’s back. As fuzzy as his thoughts were, he con cluded that they had traveled through the night, keeping up the fastest pace they could to put as much distance as possi ble between themselves and the place where they had taken him from the caravan.

  He remembered lying in the rocky enclosure, the nomads silent and tense, and clung to the hope that they had been hid ing from his Medjays. That the stones falling into the wadi had been a diversion and his men, User, and everyone else in the caravan had come away unscathed. That no further attack had occurred and sooner or later they would find him.

  The man leading the mule said something to the leader, who snapped out a sharp disagreement. The other man ar gued. The leader remained adamant. Dropping back a pace or two, the man ran a hand down the creature’s neck and held it up so the leader could see how lathered up it was, how badly in need of a rest. The men behind spoke up, evidently agreeing. With angry reluctance, the leader allowed them to stop, giving the mule the respite it needed.

  While the man in charge of the mule gave the creature a drink, another man wiped the animal down, working around Bak’s limbs as best he could, and the third massaged its trem bling legs. The leader paced back and forth, looking at the sun at irregular intervals, silently nagging them to hurry. His impatience failed to move them. They dithered and fussed over the mule, giving themselves a rest as well as the animal.

  Bak was too drowsy to consider escape, but was alert enough to know that he could not allow himself to become too lost. The thought was so ludicrous he almost laughed aloud. He had been senseless for hours. He had not the vaguest idea of how far they had come or in which direction they had traveled. Nonetheless, certain natural features stood out above all others and they would not have changed.

  Letting his cheek rest on the mule’s wiry mane, Bak forced himself to concentrate. Mule and men stood on a nar row trail that wound around a steep hillside on which were strewn chunks large and small of a dull yellowish sandstone.

  Spread out around them was a vast broken landscape of hills, ridges, and tablelands in various shades of yellow, brown, and beige. He glimpsed the pale gold of sand far below and a hint of green, the floor of a wadi containing a few trees or bushes. They had evidently left the system of wadis Senna had been leading them through and were following a track across the higher elevations.

  Slightly off to the right, beyond a range of dark gray hills,

  Bak spotted the same high reddish peak he had seen the pre vious day. Thanking the gods for its very existence, he stud ied its jagged profile. It appeared closer than it had before and the perspective was somewhat different, but it gave him a general idea as to where he was. They had to be traveling in a similar direction to the caravan. If the caravan was still on the move.

  One of the men noticed that Bak’s eyes were open. He said something to the leader, who pulled out the jar containing the sleeping potion. He grabbed Bak by the hair and twisted his head around, indifferent to the sharp jolt of pain he brought on, and forced the liquid down him. Bak was asleep before the mule moved on.

  When next Bak came to his senses, he was lying on the sand in the shade of an upturned slab of dark gray granite that had long ago fallen from above to form a room open at both ends. His hands were bound behind his back with a leather thong. Ten or so paces away, the mule stood in a similar deep, shaded passage, nibbling the leaves and a few stubby branches broken from a shrub Bak did not recognize. The an imal’s caretaker dozed nearby.

  Bak felt weak and drowsy. The pain over his ear was mod est, no longer a thing to fear and avoid. He squirmed around until he could rise on shaky knees and made his way to the end of his shelter. They were, he saw, in a narrow wadi whose floor was covered with drifted sand and along whose walls the fallen chunks and slabs of rock formed rooms of various odd sizes and shapes. The leader and another man lay sleep ing in the shade twenty or so paces to his left. The fourth man was nowhere to be seen. Bak guessed he was sitting in some sheltered aerie, keeping watch.

  Or maybe he, too, was asleep.

  Even as he thought of sneaking away, Bak felt himself nodding off. How could he hope to escape when he could not keep his eyes open? Shaking his head to wake up, jarring the sore spot above his ear, he began to probe the sand, searching for a sharp bit of rock, thinking to cut himself free.

  He glanced toward the leader of the nomads, who lay still and silent, watching him. With a grimace, the man sat up, fished through the ragged bundle beside him, and withdrew the container holding the sleeping potion.

  Bak next awoke lying in a band of shade at the base of a cliff whose black face rose into a blue-white sky. A faint breeze wafted past, drying the film of sweat on his body, soothing him. The quiet was absolute.

  He struggled to a sitting position. Licking his dry lips, longing for a drink of cool, pure water, he watched a grasshopper fly downstream in search of a tastier meal. He began to realize how hungry he was.

  His head felt heavy and his body felt thick and sluggish, but he was more aware of his surroundings than he had been for… For how long? How long ago had the nomads cap tured him? At least one night and one day. Possibly longer.

  Several days could have passed without his knowing.

  Other than the insect, a pair of larks, and a lizard, he saw no sign of life. He was alone in the wadi, and if the creatures’ lack of fear told true, he had been for some time. Had his ab ductors decided to abandon him, to leave him here to die? He thought of the two men who had vanished, the one who had been slain. Would he be the next to disappear?

  Commonsense said no. They had gone to too much trouble to abduct him and to carry him across a landscape that had to have been molded by the lord Set himself. Set was the god of the barren desert, of violence and chaos, and such was the land Bak vaguely recalled: deep and rugged wadis; high, bar ren plains; narrow trails up steep escarpments so rugged the nomads had trouble placing one foot in front of another, where the mule had dropped down on his haunches and had had to be dragged forward.

  Yes, they had gone to considerable trouble to bring him to this place. Why, then, had they left him alone if not to aban don him to death? He must free himself.

  He had just located a thin black stone he thought would slice through the leather thongs binding his wrists when he heard voices approaching up the wadi. A nomad rose from among a shaded pile of rocks a dozen paces away. He had been there all along.

  A half-dozen nomads, men Bak had never seen before, hustled him over a low rise. From the greater height, he saw a huge orange sun drop behind a haze-shrouded horizon. They descended into a broad, open wadi, with a smattering of aca cias acr
oss its surface. As they strode out across the rocky streambed, swerving around the trees and clumps of silla, he saw in the lingering twilight fifteen or so seated nomads scat tered loosely around a small fire. Not far away, the failing sunlight glinted on the mirror-like surface of water that filled a depression in the center of the dry watercourse. The mule and a half-dozen donkeys stood at the edge, nibbling shoots of greenery someone had gathered for them.

  A man left the camp and walked out to meet them. Bak’s heart sank as he recognized the leader of the quartet that had abducted him. The man withdrew a dagger from a sheath at his waist and, approaching the captive, snapped out an order.

  Someone pivoted Bak around so his back was to the weapon.

  His skin crawled and he could practically feel the dagger plunged deep into his flesh.

  Another man grabbed his hands and jerked them back, away from his body. The blade struck the leather thong bind ing his wrists together and sliced it in two. Bak was so aston ished his mouth dropped open. Laughing, the leader, beckoned and stalked toward the camp.

  A tall, thin nomad stood up as they approached. His arms and legs were as bony as those of an adolescent boy, but stringy muscles hinted at stamina and power. “Ah, here you are.” He eyed Bak curiously. “You seem to have fared well enough during your journey.”

  “You speak the tongue of Kemet,” Bak said, surprised.

  “While a young man, I spent three years with your army, serving as a scout and guide. I’ve a talent for languages, I discovered.”

  The heavy scent of roasting meat drew Bak’s eyes to the fire, where the carcass of a young lamb had been tied to a stick raised above hot coals. He could not recall when last he had been so hungry. “What did you do to my men? What’s happened to the caravan I traveled with?”

  The man spoke a few words in his own tongue. A tiny, grizzled old man who was sitting close to the fire, tending the meat, handed Bak a beaten metal bowl filled with water.

  He took a careful sip. The taste was good, undefiled by the bitterness of the sleeping potion. He took another sip and another, taking care not to drink too much at any one time.

  Relaxing enough to look around, he counted twenty-two men and a youth. They were, he felt sure, the same men who had left the many footprints Kaha and Minmose had found.

  “Did you take the other men as your prisoners after you abducted me?” He refused to believe the worst: that not a man or animal in the caravan had survived except for these few donkeys.

  The tall, thin nomad, who looked to be about thirty years of age, sat on the sand near the fire and folded his legs in front of him. He signaled his captive to sit beside him. “Who are you?”

  Bak could see that he would get no answer until he sup plied a few of his own. “I’m Lieutenant Bak. And you are?”

  “My name would mean nothing to you. The explorer Min nakht called me Nefertem.”

  Nefertem, a primeval god associated with the sun, a name most appropriate for a man who dwelt in this sun-baked land.

  “You knew Minnakht?”

  The nomad’s eyes narrowed. “You speak of him as if he’s no longer among the living.”

  Bak could see he had stumbled into a sensitive area. “You spoke of him as if in the past. I followed your example.”

  Evidently not sure of his use of a tongue he seldom spoke, Nefertem thought over what had been said. A curt nod acknowledged his acceptance of the charge. “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve heard much of him, but I’ve never met him.”

  The nomad’s voice hardened. “You’ve heard of the gold he’s been seeking, I’ll wager.”

  Wary of the sudden flash of anger, of the bitter cynicism,

  Bak said, “I’ve been told he’s looking for gold, yes. Precious stones and minerals have also been mentioned. No man has said for a fact that he’s found them.”

  The old man dipped a shallow cup into a bowl of oil and poured it slowly over the meat. Drops fell onto the fire, mak ing it crackle and smoke. Bak breathed in the aroma and his stomach cramped from hunger.

  Nefertem leaned toward him, his eyes glittering, his expres sion hard. “Why have you come into this desert, Lieutenant?”

  Bak did not know what to say. If this man had been a friend of Minnakht, the truth would serve better than a false hood. If these men were ruffians who had attacked the cara van out of malice and greed, if they were responsible for the disappearance or death of Minnakht and the other two men-and the lord Amon alone knew how many others-a lie might serve him better.

  “How well do you know Minnakht?” he countered, prob ing for a clue as to what best to say.

  “You claim to be an officer. You and your men act and fight like soldiers. I repeat: Why have you come into this desert?”

  Praying he was making the right decision, Bak admitted,

  “We are soldiers, yes. Commandant Thuty, my superior offi cer, has known Commander Inebny, Minnakht’s father, for many years. The commander persuaded my commandant that Minnakht must be found. Commandant Thuty sent me into this desert to look for him.”

  “You lie!” Nefertem stood up and slapped Bak hard across the face. “You walk at the head of a caravan filled with men seeking wealth, men whose honesty is less than it should be.”

  Infuriated by the insult, Bak shot to his feet and reached for his dagger. His hand fell on an empty sheath. A half dozen nomads leaped up, caught his arms, and manhandled him to the ground.

  “Release him!” Nefertem ordered scornfully. “He can hurt no one. He’s as helpless as a newborn puppy.”

  Bak shook off the restraining hands, scrambled up, and, forming a contemptuous look, laughed. “Without a shield of men, Nefertem, you’d be as helpless as you’ve made me.”

  For an instant, he thought he had gone too far. Nefertem took a quick step toward him, his hands balled into fists, his expression murderous. Controlling himself with obvious ef fort, he clamped a hand on Bak’s shoulder so tight the bones grated and pushed him to the ground. “Sit, Lieutenant Bak.”

  The nomad loomed over him, his stance, his face, his voice calculated to intimidate. “I want the truth. Why have you come into this desert?”

  “I came to find Minnakht.”

  “You’ve come for the gold you think he found,” Nefertem insisted.

  “If that’s what you wish to believe, so be it. Listen to your own thoughts and pay no heed to anyone else. Dismiss the truth and shrug off any words of advice I or anyone else might offer.”

  Bak braced himself for another blow. To suggest to a proud and intelligent man that he preferred to live in ignorance was as much of a slap in the face as the one he had suffered.

  The nomad glared, furious, and at the same time he shifted his feet, as if the accusation had struck home. “Rumors abound in Kaine, I’ve been told. Why would you search for a missing man when the lure of gold is stronger?”

  “I’m guided by my commandant’s wishes, not by tales of wealth that sound more like dreams than reality.”

  Nefertem crossed his arms in front of his chest. After a long, thoughtful silence, he said, “Let’s say you speak the truth. Why, then, are you traveling with that wretched guide

  Senna? And with User, who’s come into this desert for many years in an endless quest for gold.”

  “Senna didn’t want to come any more than I did, but Com mander Inebny gave him no choice. He believed I should travel the same route Minnakht followed on his last journey, and Senna knew the way. I had to accept, had to trust him to lead me along a safe and true path.”

  “You bargain with the lord Set.” Shaking his head in exag gerated sympathy, Nefertem dropped to the ground beside his prisoner.

  The darkness was complete, allowing Bak to glimpse in the scant light bits and pieces of Nefertem’s men: a knee here, a face there, arms and legs and hands. A scene from the netherworld, he felt sure.

  He thanked the lord Amon that he was no longer befud dled by the sleeping potion. “I’ve answered you as b
est I can.

  Will you not tell me what’s happened to my men? To the car avan?”

  “Why are those men so important to you, Lieutenant? If you’ve not come to find gold, why should you care about them?”

  “I stand at the head of my Medjays. Not only are they my responsibility, but I care for them as brothers. As for the other men, I took it upon myself to travel with them. I’d be negli gent in my duty not to care for their safety.”

  “Bah!”

  That one tiny word infuriated Bak. “Have you taken all their lives, the innocent along with the guilty? Are you also the man responsible for Minnakht’s disappearance? For all the other dead and missing men in this area?”

  “No,” the nomad growled through gritted teeth.

  “Have I nothing to look forward to but death?”

  Nefertem literally spat out his answer. “My father was

  Minnakht’s guide for many years. We are as brothers.”

  “Your…” Bak clamped his mouth shut and gave the no mad a sharp look. Should he have guessed the connection?

  “Your father died about a year ago, I’ve been told, and Senna took his place.”

  “He did not die. He was slain at the hands of another.”

  Bak should have been surprised. He was not. Too many men had died or disappeared in this wretched desert to take the nomad lightly. “Tell me.”

  “A year ago, he came home to our camp in the mountains, suffering from a mysterious malady.” Nefertem’s voice pulsed with anger. “He was convinced he’d been poisoned, but knew not when or how or by whom. Within a few days, he breathed his last. Minnakht knew I wasn’t free to serve as his guide, nor was my brother, so he asked Senna to travel with him.”

  “Did your father say why he thought someone wished him dead?”

  “He could think of no good reason.”

  “Senna is not a man of this desert. Where did Minnakht find him?”